1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a robot-arm telemanipulating system to be used in a space station etc., more specifically to a telemanipulating system that presents simulatively generated operating sound of the robot arm to an operator of the robot arm in a form of auditory information.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently the international space station has been built and space development has been more aggressively promoted, however in the aspect of operation of a large-scaled structure such as an antenna in the space, extravehicular activities of astronauts aboard a space station or a space shuttle are the only dependable measure.
Since the extravehicular activities are performed in such an extreme circumstance as the space, the vital risk for the workers as well as very high operation cost are always the major problems, therefore another substitutional measures in place of such human activities has been eagerly sought for.
Specifically, with an object to utilize space robots for the space jobs in the near future, various studies and experiments have been made by organizations of many countries on a robot arm for performing a space job through telemanipulation from the earth.
At present the operation of a robot arm in the space is executed depending on visual images transmitted from a monitoring camera attached close to the tip of the robot arm as well as from a plurality of monitoring camera placed in the proximity of the mounting base of the robot arm, therefore relevant techniques have been developed such as three-dimensional simulation for displaying three-dimensional images, or virtual reality technique for presenting predicted visual images to an operator considering a time-lag in the transmission of image data between the earth and the robot arm in the space.
The most essential issue to be taken into account regarding telemanipulation on the earth of a robot arm in the space is safety and reliability, since if a robot arm should unexpectedly collide with a peripheral equipment of a space station etc. during the operation, not only the robot arm but also the peripheral equipment of the space station may be damaged.
Once such an accident happens, it is practically impossible to repair the damages in the space with the technology available today, therefore operators who are operating the robot arm exclusively depending on visual information are under a great stress.
When operating status of the robot arm is visually presented, the operator is required to quickly recognize and judge a number of information and to manipulate the robot arm within a limited time, however actually it is an extremely difficult task to manipulate the robot arm watching a plurality of monitor screens at a time. Therefore it takes a long time to become an expert of robot-arm telemanipulation, and in case the operator is not yet sufficiently trained a heavy burden will be imposed on the operator.
Meanwhile, a force-sensitive feedback controller has also been recently studied, for feeding back load data such as force or torque applied to the robot arm as operational reaction force to the controller operated by an operator.
However, since a model has to be made up in a computer and a reaction force computed based on the model is provided back to the controller for establishing an interface of a force-sensitive feedback controller, this system has the disadvantage that modeling of operating environment becomes very difficult in case there is an error in the model or when the operating environment of the robot arm is complicated.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to solve the foregoing problems of the prior arts by providing a robot-arm telemanipulating system that presents an operator auditory information converted from a part of information on operating status of the robot arm (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9ctelemetry dataxe2x80x9d) transmitted from a distant position from the operator, so that a burden imposed on the operator can be alleviated.
For accomplishing the foregoing object, the present invention provides a robot-arm telemanipulating system presenting auditory information, comprising a sound source for simulatively generating an operating sound of the robot arm under telemanipulation, capable of variably controlling at least one of key, volume and tone of the operating sound by sound source control data input from outside; means for analyzing telemetry data for analyzing telemetry data transmitted from the robot arm, and controlling the sound source by generating sound source controlling data corresponding to a load amount applied to the robot arm; and means for outputting auditory information for presenting an operator the operating sound generated by the sound source in a form of auditory information.
It is preferable that the robot-arm telemanipulating system presenting auditory information according to the invention employs a simulatively synthesized motor sound as operating sound of the robot arm, in such a manner that a key of the operating sound will be higher with an increase of the load amount applied to the robot arm.
It is still preferable that in the robot-arm telemanipulating system presenting auditory information according to the invention, variation rate of the key of the operating sound in compliance with the increase of the load amount becomes greater when the load amount applied to the robot arm has exceeded a predetermined value.